Stephen West MKAL (SPOILERS!!!)

Oh my! Last week really got away from me! How did that happen you ask? Well, I was busy OBSESSING over color choices for the Stephen West mystery knit along pattern – Exploration Station. I’ve talked before about my love of mystery knit alongs, but am always sure to do my due diligence regarding a designer to makes sure I like other patterns as well. I think that Stephen West is a BRILLIANT knitwear designer but that being said; I’m not always totally enamored with all his patterns or design choices. And that is okay! So, I had no real plans to participate in his (Fall) mystery knit along that is until I saw the beginnings of the pattern. 

I totally fell in love with the pattern. I immediately bought the pattern and began what shall now be known as “the week I lost trying to figure out 4 colors to use together in a pattern”. Seriously, if you have ever been around me when I’m indecisive, well I will just apologize right now and might as well apologize for any future times. I just can’t let it go! Usually it gets bad enough that I even get sick of myself. It also didn’t help that the pattern involves cutting your yarn because there is no good way to carry along the sides of the shawl.

Luckily, most of my obsessing took place on the phone with my mom and through a group text with my mom and sister. I’m not sure they would see it as being “lucky”, but that’s how I’m looking at it! I also did some slight obsessing in the Plucky Knitters Ravelry group, which I’m sure was slightly annoying as I was week behind everyone who had spent the previous weeks obsessing over color. I won’t lie. I really tried to keep my obsessing under control in the forum, I mean, I didn’t want to be that person (except I kind of do want to be that person from time to time ;o) ). 

I ended up posting what colors of yarn I had available and a very lovely Plucky Knitter named Chantel put together two collages with color suggestions. Essentially I hemmed and hawed over this color collage along with all my yarn in person and in the end I went with one of her combinations. She really does have an eye for color! Then I was sort of mad at myself for wasting a week agonizing over colors, but c’est la vie.

**All photos are copyright of The Plucky Knitter**

So! What did I end up with for colors?? I went with the following, all Plucky Knitter yarn: A – Big Sky (Bello), B – Breakfast on 5th (Bello), C – Tiny Bubbles (Primo), and D – Old Lace (Primo). I even did a collage of these colors with my newfound collage making skills (yes, this extravaganza even motivated me to learn how to make collages!!). 

I’m really enjoying the pattern so far. I finished Clue 1 yesterday and even got started on Clue 2. Clue 3 came out today, so I’m still a bit behind. However! Clue 3 looks short, so I’m hoping I can be caught up by next Friday when the next clue comes out. Wish me luck! 

A metaphor for knitting?

I’ve recently gotten back into running. This is a HUGE deal for me. I was first exposed to running when I was a little kid, I don’t even know what age. I just remember my dad would go out running and I always wanted to go running with him. Well, of course I was way to young to run the distances he was running, but he would finish his run and then come back and pick me up for our run. I’m sure these mini runs were nothing but cool downs for my dad, but they were everything to me. I loved these runs with my dad and I think this is what instilled a need to be healthy. I remember once when my dad was out of town I attempted one of our mini runs by myself, except I had no idea where I was going and just remember sort of getting lost and quite frankly, it was scary. I really don’t remember much else of it (I have a seriously terribly memory of my childhood), but clearly I made it home and everything was okay. 

Fast forward to high school and one day I just decide that I’m going to start running for exercise. My dad was still running at this point, so my goal was to work up to what he did every week, which was running 4 miles 4 to 5 days a week and 6 miles one day a week. It took some time, but I did manage to work up to the 4 miles routes. Now, at this point the wise thing would be to keep with the 4 mile routes until I was totally in sync with them, however I thought I was ready for the 6 mile weekend route with my dad. The weekend rolled around and my dad and I headed out on the 6-mile run. I won’t go into detail, but the run was not the glorious run I envisioned in my head. But! I did survive it and my poor dad stuck with me the whole time even though I’m pretty sure it made it into the longest 6-mile run of his life. 

Let me be clear. I was not good aka fast at running. I was very slow. However, despite all of this, I decided to join the track team in high school. I’m not going to lie; I might have joined because I didn’t have to try out. I was terrible at running track. The only race I ran was the 2-mile and I came in last in every race. I am not exaggerating. I loved running and being part of the team and it never bothered me that I was terrible at it (for high school standards). I did much better at cross-country where I was more of a middle of the pack finisher. 

In my early 20s I trained for a marathon and within a year completed 3 marathons, one of which was part of the Goofy challenge at Disney World. Marathon training was like a drug for me. I LOVED following a schedule for running. I LOVED the challenge of running further than the week before. This started my downfall with running. You see, running long distances finally took me out of the ranks of being a 10 min/miler. I was regularly running shorter distance runs (anything between 4 and 6 miles) at an 8-9 min/mile. I didn’t even run this fast in high school!

I would have been fine if I had just stuck with one marathon, but I was young and dumb and just couldn’t stop. It seemed from that point on, running and I just weren’t going to get along anymore. I’d been through various injuries and physical therapy stints, eventually getting to the point of just being done with running. It was just too much to bear how terrible I was at it, especially after the high long distance running had given me.

Fast forward to the summer of 2014 and I’ve decided that I am going to run again. I committed myself to going to go back to the beginning and slowly work my way up to it. My latest injury, which I went to physical therapy for, was a knee injury. I decided I was not going to let this beat me. So I made a plan and I stuck with it. Today was the first time where I finally felt my hard work had paid off. I’m officially running again! I don’t think I’ll ever do long distance running again, but I’m not totally discounting it as a possibility. I don’t even love running like I once did, but there is something powerful about being able to step out your front door and move your body from my place to the next and eventually make it home.

How does all of this relate to knitting? I think it all ties into knitting. I think it's the building blocks for why I haven't given up on knitting and for why I've stuck with it despite the mistakes I've made in my knitting & crocheting.  How many knitted or crocheted pieces have you wondering if you’ll ever finish? Or what about that technique that you never thought you’d never master that you now do with ease? I think that running set the tone for my knitting/crocheting/crafting. It’s not an instant gratification hobby. Knitting takes time, patience, and planning. It takes seeing the whole picture while working on a small piece of it. It takes not giving up. Knitting and crocheting is like training for and running a marathon. It takes dedication and practice. Each stitch adds up like all those miles on the course, eventually you have a beautiful handmade piece that you can wear (or gift) with pride.

The Test Knit

The weather is finally cooler today here in Savannah and I just pray that it’s here to stay. It was such a treat this morning to run WITHOUT the sun burninating me and WITHOUT needing to wear my running hat. I did still put on sunscreen because well that makes Mr. SpiderKate happy. He gets very upset when I don’t wear sunscreen and despite it being overcast and probably not really needing it today, I still lathered it on to make him happy. Why is he obsessed with me wearing sunscreen? Well, in my younger days I was a lifeguard and he’s convinced that I’ve been overexposed to the sun as a result. He also doesn’t trust that teenager Kate was diligent about putting on sunscreen and he would be right about that. It’s hard to argue with someone that doesn’t want you to get skin cancer, so I lather up despite how annoying it is to run with sunscreen on your face.

Anyway, this post wasn’t supposed to be about the long-standing discussion between Mr. SpiderKate and myself regarding my sun exposure. I wanted to write today about a recent test knit I did for Michelle Meyer of Timeless Knits. I haven’t done a test knit before, unless you count my own designs, and for some reason this one really spoke to me. It might’ve had to do with my recent “what am I doing with my life” phase or maybe it’s just about having a deadline and goal. Either way, the shawl was beautiful and it offered an opportunity to try out a yarn company that I’ve been eyeing for a while now. The name of the shawl is Footbridge and it’s knit with Luna Grey Fiber Arts Orion. Luna Grey Fiber Arts is the company and Orion is the base. Let’s talk about the shawl first and then I’ll give you the skinny on the yarn.

I absolutely loved knitting this shawl. It was VERY relaxing and just what I needed. Now, I will not lie, the rows do get very long at the end, I mean it does have a ruffle and all. I find the best way to get used to the longer rows, especially after the shorter rows in the beginning, is to take a break from the knitting. I don’t know why, but this works for me. When I re-pick up the knitting, the long rows are like the new normal for the shawl. The pattern is well written and easy to follow. I had the main pattern memorized after a couple of repeats. I can also see using this shawl as a great template to play with color. Michelle’s pattern is color blocked, but the design lends itself to different interpretations of color blocking. One idea I’ve been playing around with is alternating colors of the garter stitch and stockinette sections/bands. It would be sort of “stripey”, but not really. Or! What about mixing in the next color via this stripe effect before totally switching said color. See! It’s fun!

Now the yarn - Luna Grey Fiber Arts is a yarn company/brand that I’ve been following (re: stalking) for some time now. I’m not sure why I haven’t pulled the trigger and ordered yet; perhaps I was just waiting for the perfect time/project/opportunity. Jackie Vleck is the talented owner/dryer/color creator extraordinaire of Luna Grey Fiber Arts. Jackie very generously offered all test knitters 10% off the purchase of yarn for the test knit, seriously, how sweet/nice is that??! The biggest problem I had was deciding on what colors to get. Her colors are fabulous. I secretly had in mind using a yellow, orange and grey color, but I feared this would be a weird combination. I asked Michelle (shawl designer) for some color suggestions and, I kid you not, she sent me a message with these exact colors. I could not make this up! I went with Charcoal (grey), Pumpkin (orange), and Midas (yellow) for my shawl. These colors are VERY Fall, which I just so happen to be in the mood for.

These colors have depth! Charcoal, Pumpkin, and Midas are not your typical solid colors. They are semisolid awesomeness. I am particularly enamored with Midas because I love yellow and it’s so nice to find a yellow that isn’t just yellow, if that make sense. This yellow is shades of light and dark. It reminds me a lot of the Snitch in Harry Potter. My yarn was shipped quickly too! I think I ordered on a Monday or Tuesday even and my yarn was here by that Friday. It came beautifully packaged and included a note and some stitch markers. I really cannot recommend this yarn enough! So, if you are like me and am on the fence about ordering from Luna Grey Fiber Arts, then definitely jump down and get ordering :o) Jackie has some great kit combos up in the shop for this particular shawl right now. Some of my favorite combos are: Option 1, Option 2, Option 3, and Option 11.

Other details of my shawl:
Ravelry Project Page: Footbridge
Cast on date: 26 Sept 2014
Cast off date: 13 Oct 2014
Color A: Midas – 48 grams used (139 yds)
Color B: Charcoal – 85 grams used (226 yds)
Color C: Pumpkin – 78 grams used (246 yds)
Blocked gauge: 7 sts/2” & 15 sts/4”; some measurements gave me 8 sts/2” and 16 sts/4”, I think if I measured gauge once the shawl relaxed (shrunk) some, then my gauge would be spot on. I didn’t check my row gauge as meticulously, it looked close to 30 rows/4” but that can’t be right based on my final measurements.
Final measurements: Approx. 26” down the spine with a wingspan of approx. 61”

The Lost Months

This blog post has been a long time coming. I’ve written it many times and many different ways in my mind, but none of them have made it to the actual post. There is really no good way to explain why I haven’t blog in so long except that life has been crazy, which I know isn’t a good excuse. My personal life has been a little crazy since my last blog post and as a result, I wasn’t really crafting all that much. I was knitting, but mainly just knitting obligations.  Which I know sounds terrible, but it also helped me stay sane during all the insanity.

My spouse, the wonderful Mr. SpiderKate, had ramped up his job search and it was starting to become clear that the search wasn’t going to result to a job in Houston.  Now, this was not for lack of trying. He did try to look in the Houston area, but then a really good opportunity presented itself in the great state of Georgia and our fate was sealed. I don’t remember much about the months of May or June, except to say that I/we spent almost all of our free time getting the house ready to sell and setting ourselves up to move to another state. Though at the same time I kept a lot of this information to myself and a very few close friends. There were just too many balls in the air to share until everything was absolutely happening.

The month of June, in fact, was exceptionally crazy.  Within a span of probably 2 weeks, Mr. SpiderKate went on the interview, we put our house on the market, Mr. SpiderKate got the job offer and accepted the offer, our house was sold, and all the plans were set for the movers to pack us up & move us to Georgia. There are no really no words to describe how fast all of this happened. If you are of the generation that knows about the Tasmanian devil, then that’s essentially what it was like.

There are some hilariously tragic stories from the move, which if I didn’t laugh at, then I would have just cried and broken down.  I’ll give you a little taste of something that happened and save the rest for another post. On the day the movers came to load the truck, our cat, Copernicus, peed on me as I brought him to the bathroom to lock him up. I was PEED on at like 830 AM IN THE MORNING.  The movers are literally pulling the truck up and about to ring my doorbell.  My stuff is packed up. It’s not like I’m about to change or do laundry! I spent the rest of the day with my cat peed shorts and in fear of being peed on again anytime I had to pick up/move/etc. the cat. On the other hand, it broke my heart that he was that scared that he peed on me. It’s probably safe to say that we both didn’t have a good day that day. The saving grace of that morning was my dear friend Sherry, who brought me breakfast and coffee from Starbucks.

It all builds character, right? That’s my inner Calvin & Hobbes fan coming out. This time I’m sticking with Calvin’s dad on this one – it does build character.  Next time I promise more knitting stories and photos. And maybe another moving story because there are more to be told and they are THAT good.

Wonder woman

Today hasn't necessarily gone as planned, translation - I didn't get to spend the morning knitting/crocheting.  However, I did get a lot of stuff done and that makes me feel good.  So, how did my day start instead?  How else but with a trip to the grocery store! Upon waking at the early hour (I jest) of 715 am, I realized that my day would go A LOT smoother if I got my butt in gear and to the grocery store by 8 am.  Before heading to the store though, I needed to empty the dishwasher and clean up the dinner dishes from the night before.  Lucky for me there wasn't a lot of clean up and it all went pretty quickly.

I needed to go to the store because I had plans to make a Crock Pot Beef Stew and with a dentist appointment at 11 am, there weren't a whole lot of options for a grocery store run later on that would let me get the crock pot going at the right time.  I also needed to pick up some baking supplies and needed my afternoon open for baking. 

I was able to get to and from the grocery store in about an hour, which is pretty good for me.  No dilly dallying allowed! Once home I got a lot of laundry going and then got to work on preparing everything for the crock pot.  This particular meal is SUPER easy to set up, which just happens to be my favorite kind of crock pot meal.  While I think the ones that have you precook some stuff are a little bit tastier, but they certainly leave more clean up (boo!).  Anyhow!  I got carrots & potatoes peeled and cut up followed by the onion and beef and all into the crock pot by about 945.  Next up was the dentist appointment and then home for lunch and an afternoon filled with baking!

Phew!  It's been a busy day.  I'm actually between baking now and need to get back to it.  I know that I keep promising more updates and I wanted to say that I am working on it.  I'd like to share the Crock Pot Beef Stew recipe, but I haven't made this one in a long time and want to make sure it's as good as I remember.  Look for a post with the recipe soon! 

All this is to say that I feel a little bit like wonder woman today or super wife ;o)  I hope that you are having a fabulous day as well!

Granny Squares

I have a granny square obsession.  I love them!  I don't know what it is about them, but I seriously love the look of them.  I even love just talking about them.  One might think that all I crochet is granny squares.  In actuality, I've only made a handful of granny squares.  I didn't have any real project in mind when I made them, but mostly just crocheted them for fun.  Well, now I'm joining the big leagues and I'm crocheting my first granny square baby blanket.  

I'm not making a traditional granny square blanket where you make a bunch of granny squares and join them together.  Rather, I'm making one continuous granny square that just grows and grows.  These are actually my favorite granny squares.  I often describe this type of granny square blanket as a "modern take" on granny squares.  I don't know why I've waited this long to start a project like this because I've certainly spent a lot of time talking about making a blanket like this.  

This particular blanket is going to be 5 colors of Berroco Comfort.  I went with a G (4.0 mm) hook for this yarn weight and I love how it's working up.  It is soft and squishy and is going to be perfect for my new nephew.  I'm planning to have this blanket end up around car seat cover size, which I think will come in handy up in MI, which will be the blanket's final destination.  If all goes well, I'd like to have this completed before the end of the month and shipped out.  Wish me luck!

Finished....barely!

Today is the last day of the Olympics and consequently it's the last day of the Ravellenics.  How did I do?  Not as well as I hoped to do, but I did cast off my Cirruncinus shawl today! So, short of some knitting miracle where I finish my MKAL today (hey, it's possible!), then I'm one for one.  I'm slightly disappointed I didn't get more done, but I just didn't have the knitting time like I thought I would.  Honestly, I'm okay with that!  

Copernicus never seems to be far from my knitting

This version of Cirruncinus is knitted with Araucania Husaco in colorway #05.  I'm generally not a fan of knitting lace with yarn as highly variegated in color like this one, but this yarn just spoke to me.  I had to have it and I HAD to knit my shawl pattern in it.  However, after I paid for the yarn and got it home, I started to have doubts.  What was I thinking getting a color this wild?  Had I looked at my wardrobe recently?? I'm not a wild person!  And! What if the color would pool???  And what if the color pooled and looked terrible??  Well, I talked myself through this temporary crisis with a "you need to step out of your knitting color comfort zone and not worry about color pooling" and it worked.  I put my doubts aside, wound my yarn and cast on.

My Starry Night bag seemed a fitting project bag for this knit

To say that I'm glad I stuck it out with this color is an understatement.  The more I knit with it, the more I fell in love with the color & yarn.  I forgot about all my worries about how it would turn out.  A pattern like Cirruncinus and other sideways knit shawls where the main body of the shawl is stockinette are very forgiving for variegated yarns.  

I worked the pattern as written with one modification - I added one extra repeat of the Cirruncinus Lace to the straight section.  That made it 13 repeats instead of 12.  I just wanted to use up as much of this gorgeous yarn as I could.  How did I figure out I could knit an extra repeat?  I weighed my yarn.  At the completion of 11 repeats I had 33 grams remaining.  At the completion of 12 repeats I had 29 grams of yarn remaining, therefore each repeat was using approximately 4 grams of yarn.  I knew I wanted to reserve 25 grams for the decrease sections, so I knew I could safely knit one more repeat.  However, for extra insurance I put in a lifeline after the 12 repeat.  This way, if my gamble didn't pay off, then I could just frog (rip) back to my lifeline and started the first decrease section there. 

Lifeline!!

My calculations worked out and in the end I had 5 grams of yarn at the end.  That means this version of the shawl used 428 yards (95 grams).   I don't have final measurements yet as I haven't finished blocking it, but I will get those posted next time - hopefully this week.  I've missed two weeks of blogging, which I plan to make up for this week :o)

Only 5 grams of yarn remained

Ravellenics 2014

This post is going to be short and sweet because I need to get back to my Ravellenics knitting!  This will be the second Olympics IN A ROW that I've participated in! I'm going to give myself a pat on the back for that one!  Though, to tell the truth, I've been thinking about chickening out and not participating.  Why you ask?? Well, I've been feeling slightly overwhelmed with the quantity of projects I'm "currently knitting".  How many projects you ask, well it's enough that I gave myself a goal of finishing up at least two of them by Thursday.  One project was my Olivia Cowl, which was the knit-along for Park Avenue Yarns (PAY) last month and the second project was my PAW Hat, which was the knit-along for PAY in December.  Yikes, why yes I had gotten behind!

Olivia Cowl in progress

I barely squeaked in finishing these projects!  I finished up my Olivia Cowl late Thursday evening and finished up the PAW Hat this afternoon.  And by finished I mean I wove in all the ends and seamed what need to be seamed.  No, I did not get to blocking, but I'm counting these as done anyway! 
 

Finished PAW Hat!!!

Not sure why these projects lingered as long as they did.  Okay, I do know why.  The PAW Hat lingered around because I was being lazy about the seaming.  Oh and all the ends that had to be woven in....that alone was a herculean event.  Seriously.  I don't know if I've had a project with that many ends to weave in!  Once I finished that I pretty much considered that project done.  Even though it was a hat that was knit flat and clearly not wearable without being seamed.  But, I digress and need to get back to my Ravellenics knitting.  More on that later.  

Copernicus is such a helper when it comes to photographing hand knits...NOT!

Oh and the Olivia Cowl.  Don't get me started on that.  Such a deceptively easy knit, I mean it's basketweave stitch!  It's only knits and purls! Well, I won't let something as simple as "only being knits and purls" deceive me again.  Turns out that basketweave stitch knit on the bias, yes folks that's right, ON THE BIAS, is a bit of a challenge.  It didn't help that I decided to knit with a very dark yarn either.  It took me awhile to wrap my head about knitting basketweave like that.  The pattern is a 16 row chart and you repeat those 16 rows 12 times total.  I'm not kidding when I say that it took me to almost my ninth pattern repeat before I finally into a rhythm and memorized the chart. 

Loved being able to wear this today!

Another MKAL

Yup, it's no surprise that I've been bitten by the mystery knit-along (MKAL) bug! Shortly after finishing up my last one - Gateway to Fall MKAL - the same designer (Cindy Garland) announced she was starting another one on January 1st 2014.  Well, of course I had to jump on the bandwagon! Even better, Stunning String Studio was offering kits for the mystery knit-along.  Well, we all know how I feel about kits! Seriously, kits for knitting at the best.  I love having everything I need for a pattern sent to me in one package.  I think, for me, it's just one less thing I have to figure out and makes life a little bit easier.  Because when you have a million works in progress (like I do), it makes it that much easier when adding another project to the fold.

Clue 1 completed!

The name of this MKAL is Divergence. The pattern is actually the first in a series of five mystery knit-alongs in the Wild Prairie 2014 Mystery Club.  I could have opted to buy the e-book and done all the mystery knit-alongs, but thought I'd start simple and only commit to one.  Actually, the lovely Mr. SpiderKate reminded that I tend to over commit myself when it comes to knitting and should make sure to leave some room for my own design work.  I'm not going to lie, when he gave me his advice of only committing to one, well I was a little mad because I wanted to do all!  However, after giving it some thought, I reluctantly realized he was right.  I guess that's why they call your spouse "your better half" ;o)

Clue 3 completed!

Since I didn't purchase the full club (e-book), I wasn't eligible for the club special yarn color and other goodies.  I was okay with that because it meant I got to pick my color! Yay! Stunning String Studio has a lot of wonderful colors and while the decision was hard to make, I ultimately picked Sand Dune.  I hardly ever knit with neutral colors and knowing that this MKAL would be a shawl with cables, well, I figured that I couldn't go wrong with a neutral, light color to show off all the details of the cables.  The yarn that came with the kit is called Decadent Fingering.  It's a brand new base for Stunning String Studio and is a scrumptious 55% Wool, 45% Silk blend with 657 yards in a 150 gram skein.  Large skeins like this are great for larger shawls because there are less ends to weave in!  

Just finished last row with beads! The beads are very subtle in this pattern.

The yarn has been lovely to knit with and the pattern has been thoroughly enjoyable to knit.  We are nearing the end of the MKAL, so I'm a little sad about that, but looking forward to having my first finished shawl of 2014.  The clues have been spread out over 6 weeks, with two clues coming out the first week and one clue released every Friday thereafter.  I just finished up Clue 5 this morning and am eagerly awaiting the release of Clue 6 tomorrow! 

Clue 5 completed!

Under 100 Knit Collection from KnitPicks

I'm back and I have a plan! What plan is that, you ask?  Well, a plan to better keep up with this blog :o)  I'm going to hold myself accountable to one blog post a week.  My goal is for these posts to go live on Monday, but we'll see how that goes.  I think just planning on one a week will be good for now - I might be setting myself up for failure if I picked a particular day, so better safe than sorry!

My sample shawl

So, where to start? I have a new pattern and it's part of a collection! I've been waiting to share with everyone all about this pattern and now I finally can!  The pattern is called Cirruncinus and it was one of the first sideways knit shawls I designed!  I fell in love with the stitch pattern used in the border of this shawl when I saw it in a stitch dictionary and really wanted to turn it into a shawl/scarf.  

Sample/test knitter's shawl - photo courteous of KnitPicks

Well, I worked at it and got the pattern figured out, knitted, and written out.  I submitted it for editing and must confess that I was feeling a bit smug because well, this was a sideways knit shawl/scarf and the editing of course was going to be a breeze, right??!!  Boy, was I wrong about that!  Overall the pattern was okay, but I had failed to take proper notes on how I finished knitting the shawl and had written it up how I assumed I had finished knitting it.  Well, that assumption couldn't have been more wrong!  Never was I more thankful for technical editing! I worked out the kinks for the ending of the shawl, sent it back to technical editing, and it passed with flying colors.  

Shawl blocking!

Copernicus was a big help during blocking - NOT!

I had a couple of options with this shawl - I could either self publish on Ravelry or I could try submitting to a magazine or publication.  I opted for the latter choice and started keeping my eyes out for a submission call that I thought my pattern would be a good fit for.  Eventually I got noticed of a call for submissions for a new Knit Picks collection featuring knitting patterns that used less than 100 grams of yarn.  I thought my pattern would be a good fit and the rest is history from there!

Sample/test knitter's shawl - photo courteous of KnitPicks

I'm really excited & honored to be a part of this collection!  Knit Picks was absolutely wonderful to work with and I couldn't be happier with how my pattern turned out, the photos they took and with the publication as a whole.  There are 30 patterns in the book and I don't think there is a bad one among them.  I plan to knit many myself since I have an abundance of single 100 g skeins of yarn in my stash.  The proper title of the book is Under 100 Knit Collection and is available as a hard copy book, ebook, or you can download individual patterns.